Granblue Fantasy’s longtime director and producer step down in organizational change
The popular mobile RPG Granblue Fantasy recently had a change in its development structure. According to Cygames, longtime producer Yuito Kimura and director Tetsuya Fukuhara will be stepping down from their positions to focus on other projects. Kimura will retain his position as Executive Director at Cygames, while Fukuhara will oversee the Granblue Fantasy brand in the role of creative director.
The news was announced during the Granblue Fantasy summer stream on July 28, 2024. Back in 2014, Yuito Kimura had once handed over the title of Granblue Fantasy producer to Koichi Haruta while he worked on other Cygames titles. Kimura is credited as producer of the Shadowverse games and Princess Connect! Re:Dive. He returned to Granblue Fantasy in 2016, where he remained a producer until yesterday’s announcement.
Tetsuya Fukuhara, on the other hand, has served not only as the longtime director for Granblue Fantasy, but also as a creative director for the spin-off fighting games Granblue Fantasy Versus and Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising as well as the general director of the action RPG Granblue Fantasy Relink. His work on multiple Granblue Fantasy titles makes him the perfect fit as the franchise’s creative director.
Post translation: Thank you for the past 10 years! Let’s have fun at the (Granblue Fantasy) festival tomorrow, too!
Post translation: I came across some screenshots from when I was making mockups in Flash by myself in the early stages of development (early 2013), and it’s funny how they bear no resemblance to the final game. At the time, there was no setting or anything of the sort, so the text is just random.
Both developers expressed their gratitude in different ways. While Kimura thanked Granblue Fantasy fans for the 10 years he spent working on the franchise, Fukuhara posted some early drafts of Granblue Fantasy’s development. Fans who tune in to the Granblue Fantasy streams will be saddened to know that both developers will stop appearing in them, though any announcements regarding the franchise will be delivered by Fukuhara as creative director.
However, the developers have assured players that the change in organization is not cause for worry, as both Kimura and Fukuhara have been delegating tasks and preparing their successors since as long as three years ago. Thus, the development team is expected to remain firm, with no significant changes.
